Metacard for Web Applications

[Monte Goulding]

Hi Rodney

Here's some info posted to the rev list
<snip>

I don't know if this is on-topic here, but just to prevent some
invent-the-wheel-twice addidents:

  http://www.s2theatertechniek.nl/personal.html

Here you can find info about my cgilib.mc stack, which will (because it's
work-in-progress) support the following stuff in CGI-scripts:
* SQL-queries
* easy handling of cookies
* authorisation access
* some other handy stuff

Regards, / Groeten,
Sjoerd

</snip>

Unfortunatly I downloaded the stack and it was password protected so it's
not an ideal component for your purposes. Clearly the general idea that a
library has an libraryStack handler that initialises some local variables
that can then be queried is a good one.

All CGI files could end up being just:
 #!mc
on startUp
 library "libForm"
end startUp

The next thing is to separate the business logic, display logic and data
access.

It could be that a process like the following is used:
 - CGI post/get
 - libForm parses the request
 - libForm loads and executes business logic based on the request
 - the business logic loads and executes data access logic depending on the
request
 - libForm gets the result and then loads and executes display logic
depending on the request
 - libForm then writes the resulting HTML,WAP,XML,SMIL, whatever to stdout

I'm still not sure if it's better to use a libraryStack for libForm or just
put it all in the CGI as I have done with formrouter.cgi. The only advantage
I can see is that libForm could end up being a black box that users only
need to know how to use. It certainly makes implementing mc CGI easy.

Hope this helps

Monte

PS I would be interested in working on this with you if you like.


> Hello everyone,
>
> I am starting to put a page together which will sumarise the current
> approaches to using Metacard for creating "web applications."
>
> You can find the start of the page at:
> http://radio.weblogs.com/0114573/categories/mc/metacardwebapps.html
>
> In the meantime I'm interested in determining any known issues and
> limitations with Metacard and CGIs.  I've started trying to list these
> on the above page, but I'm sure there's lots more, please email me your
> contributions!
>
> I'm making and example MCCGILoader stack which will demonstrate how to
> build an extensible CGI framework using Metacard stacks.  Should have a
> first release of this ready in a day or two.
>
> I'd be interested in an example script showing how to add binary data
> to a postgreSQL database via database, eg user fills out form on web
> page, attaches a file and submits.  MC CGI stack receives data, adds
> file to database.
>
> ~ Rodney
>
>
> --
> Rodney Tamblyn
> 44 Melville Street
> Dunedin
> New Zealand
> +64 3 4778606
> http://rodney.weblogs.com/
>
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